w.e.b.

When Thomas Friedman wrote his book The World Is Flat in 2005, it was heralded as a seminal work on the impact that globalisation would have on us all. The Internet was supposed to play a huge part in this and with Facebook a year old we began to believe in a very different future.

Today, more than four billion people remain unconnected to the web, according to the World Economic Forum. One of the biggest challenges of our time is to connect the unconnected, making Internet access and use a realistic possibility for all, regardless of gender, income or geography.

This is a key time for the internet, and for the World Wide Web that offers its most popular method of navigation... We have the opportunity to reconfirm and solidify the web's founding principles of openness, accessibility and global information sharing. A Digital Magna Carta is a good place to start.

Yet managing risks for adolescents is hardly a new state of affairs. Anna Freud noted that it was very difficult for us to help teenagers, partly because of our wish to forget our own painful embarrassments that are an inevitable part of those years.

Take a look around you now, how many devices are connected to the Internet? For starters there is the one you're reading this article on, be it a laptop, phone, or tablet computer. But what about the other electrical appliances around your home, such as your oven or your washing machine?

A few weeks ago I complained bitterly about my atrocious internet connection. The impact of a deathly slow and unnervingly unstable connection is hard to overstate. Tension and frustration chez Wilson reached boiling point.

While technology is not a panacea for social problems, it has the potential to connect citizens to information on the laws and people that govern them at a lower cost and larger scale than ever before and to make all voices count.

As we celebrate 25 years of the World Wide Web, the Web for Everyone coalition wants to give thousands of people the power to learn new digital skills. The aim of the partnership is to address 'internet inequality' by encouraging people from all walks of life, young and old, to not only use the Web but create it.

British households increasingly crave broadband connections that can cope with their huge demand for the web at peak times of day, when everyone's at home and trying to stream their favourite TV shows, download films for the next day's commute, surf the internet for homework, or Skype friends and family.

I gave Facebook my golden years, but what has Facebook ever given me? It has facilitated a lazy approach to keeping in contact with people. Who wants a thoughtfully-written postcard when they can just pop open a message? It has normalised nosiness. It has led my being constantly reminded of those I don't keep in contact with anymore but can't quite bring myself to 'unfriend'.

I have always believed that anything is possible and that if you really want something, you'll find a way to make it happen. It's this very belief that made me think it would be a good idea to attempt to get around the world in 14 days.

I get to talk to many companies around the world, from many different industries about how to build a compelling and manageable mobile website strategy. Many today still struggle to grasp the potential risks to their business that stem from getting the mobile web wrong.

With web series going mainstream and hype around Netflix's successes at a high, the timing of Raindance's WebFest this year couldn't be better for new filmmakers trying to break into the online industry.

One soggy afternoon in January when I had nothing to do, an unfortunately usual occurrence, I started to trawl the Internet for something to busy myself with. A few half-witted articles and a lot of porn later, I very much stumbled upon a web series entitled 'The Outs'. It was free. And I began to watch.

Perhaps Twitter should consider looking at verified accounts in a completely different way... maybe it should be a compulsory part of signing up for an account. If you've handed over government issued identification papers during sign-up (driving license, passport etc) to prove who you are, you're significantly less likely to start sending out death threats - unless you're stupid.

In the two decades since, the web has opened up communication and ideas in ways few dreamed possible. As a tool which enables people to speak freely with others all over the world, putting thousands of information sources at our fingertips, the web has fuelled revolutions and overthrown governments.

What can be achieved online is staggering. Information about any topic imaginable is available in an instant. Whether you're conducting serious research or just looking to satisfy an idle curiosity, your thirst for knowledge can be sated with a few clicks of the mouse.

Ultimately it should be parents who are responsible for how their children use computers and what they access online. This could take the form of physical monitoring of younger children, using control software where necessary, but parents also need to be teaching their offspring about responsible use of the internet.

Prime Minister David Cameron is calling on internet companies such as Facebook and Google to do more to tackle online pornography. Google has already offered to invest heavily in cleaning up porn and developing a hashing technique that will make it easier to track images as they spread across the web. But who should be held responsible for content that is deemed unsuitable or illegal?